


Numerical Values

by BonGarland



Category: Captain America, Captain America - All Media Types, Captain America the Winter Soldier, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen, Really incoherent actually, gahhh me and my angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 20:47:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1442281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BonGarland/pseuds/BonGarland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a drabble, inspired by something I saw on tumblr. I need to gush out all these incoherent feels, so I can get an actual plotline going involving post-winter soldier-ness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Numerical Values

Numbers. Even now, they seemed his go-to distraction, the one thing that had never left the soldier's arsenal.

When he'd pulled him from a lab table in HYDRA's base, Bucky had been hazily repeating seemingly random numbers, over and over. Steve couldn't tell at the time if it was a coping mechanism, a punishment, or just a sign of the already-fracturing man Bucky had been then, already tainted with an experimental adaptation of Erskine's serum.

He'd learned that the man with the metal arm had never been called the Winter Soldier to his face – he was reduced to a serial number for identification, or coined "the asset" over communications lines. It was a bid to drain humanity from the soldier, to morph flesh and emotion until no potentially-compromising human traits remained. He was an object, a weapon, to be loaded, fired, and then stored at will, nothing more.

Fortunately, they'd failed. His friend, Bucky, was still there, the mask of the Winter Soldier slipping a little more from his face every time they had faced one another, until finally, it fell and shattered from the Helicarrier when Steve did.

But in the midst of a stakeout or reconnaissance mission, he'd catch him – Bucky – counting. Links on a chain fence, individual plates of metal that formed his bionic arm, scars on the arm that was still his own, the scrapes and scuffs on the muzzle of a Barrett 107 he was sniping with. Steve had come to accept it was something like a nervous habit, something to ground the Soldier – no, Bucky – in the moment, to keep him aware of his surroundings.

The adaptations to the modern world had been significantly more difficult for him, frozen and then thawed and re-frozen as he had been for years and years, like a Popsicle a child was indecisive about wanting. His body was practically in a constant state of confusion, his mind even more so. There were still tough moments, moments when Steve was irrationally glad he happened to be the only one around, durable as he proved against the metal arm's blows when a fit of scared confusion struck. But they were dwindling, as were the moments of disorientation, the moments where a childlike vulnerability would invade Bucky's voice and expression, the moments where Steve would have to wave off the team and pull him aside to assure him that he was Bucky, he was Steve's friend, he was Captain America's best friend and he wouldn't be left behind again. They were decreasing, one less thing for Bucky to have to count.


End file.
